/ Now at AC: “Some Column Poems” by Samuel M. Moss
To come across a youth burning
aloeswood within a budding grove
the indole scent the
galling grab of chloride
the corn had dried
right there on the stalk
some cant always doubted
when we taught that craft
an under metric of sampled speech—
in curried monad breath
on burl, on knotted cornflower
that keeps my hand numb
can we make or see the temple
whose serried walls of angle
to not have a word to one’s own
that gall, ineffable
a splenetic game
tarmac bound, the brine bath
wisps of culture in a coral brand
To come across another language
caught within its own lease
Three poems, at once adhering to and subtly breaking the constraints of the grid, playing with ideas of Proustian fantasy, seventies hair-metal fantasy (at least, that’s what I always get whenever kobolds are mentioned), language and its other, and the legacy of Modernism. Moss has said that the “mode that produced these poems came on suddenly, lasted for a month or so, then left” and was “the closest I've ever felt to being ‘inhabited.’” Like an Agnes Martin, these pieces are luminous in their rigidity, and deeply human in the ways they bend and move within that rigidity.
Hole. Let’s do that one first shall we? The Cubby’s Veneer Screen. [Hollow echoing] Work. Scary, right? [Scraping] O pen X. Fiction. Science. Creep in. Jimmy, Jerry, HELP US| me OUT OF HERE! How does it work? This sonnet? This I M I T A T I O N fix. Willy, it’s wonked! Lost remote con troll, you got a Golden Ticket? Full access? What to do w/ it? Behind scenes is a fatal trap. You’re gonna die. Can you visualize all golden ratios of torture before it happens? Shut down black mirrors. No disturbance. Futures pray to dogs, son. Jesus bled for account’s net-worth of sun-network sin. There you have it? It is Twilight Zone (one & only) original Fifth Dimension. Ouch! I’m not gonna hurt you, tho it hurts! @least you don’t have to flip out single sides. HELP! [Honk] Get me out of here! STOP! [Honk] My e glasses broke. I can’t
2.
see. Why r you afraid of the rooms? How many peeps r in this Thing? R we caught? Some Thing— some one just cut my head off! Cruel comments. Take care of your cats! Make sure they r all right. It’ll b worth it. Don’t worry. Help some user tie #laces. You’re a doctor now. [High-pitched whistle] Do you remember how you got here? In a ravioli? One from the freezer in the middle of the night. Only the government could have built a ploy like this. Alien. God. You hope it’s a god? Let us concentrate. We won’t solve any problem sitting still. Keep the line moving. Work. There’s got 2 b a way out.
A bizarre, labyrinthine mashup of the Muppets and the Canadian sf horror classic Cube, as told through 28 cubes which might also be Instagram posts? One of the most carefully deranged works we’ve published. Read Nico Teixeira’s “28 Cubes” at our archive now.
“But seriously, what is life if not surrounded by everything that fills it with beauty and texture”: AC contrib Stephanie Yue Duhem interviews poet Ashley D. Escobar at Full Stop. Tawanda Mulalu calls Duhem’s new book, Cataclysm Moves Me I Regret to Say, “A spectacular, tender, and sensitive book of poems—but also alarmingly funny, even in its mood of socio-technological gloom.” Maybe you should check it out??
